How much does it cost per hour to fly a 747? There are a few different ways of looking at this question. The most common is by referring to a generic “operating cost per flight hour” figure. Most of the (extremely) generic references I’ve seen using that metric for a Boeing 747–400 are in the US$25,000 per hour range.

At a macro level, aircraft operating costs include both flight and ground costs associated with the operation of an aircraft, such as fuel, crew salaries and training, landing fees, ground handling, parking, gate leases, and maintenance, just to name some of the big expenses. Every airline has economists whose sole preoccupation is trying to optimize and balance all of this stuff against available routes, likely demand, fleet mix etc. (I’m given to understand they use literally gallons of Eye of Newt every day.)

There is a tremendous amount of variability in any such figures. More engines (usually) means more fuel burn per hour; fuel prices fluctuate on a daily basis; newer engines are more fuel-efficient than older engines, etc. Also, different authorities will occasionally come to blows on such subjects as to whether to base hourly costs on a typical flight profile for the type of aircraft in question (lots of takeoffs and landings, or one takeoff followed by twelve hours of droning along followed by a descent, approach and landing).

(If you really want your head to hurt, here’s a list of all of the possible cost centers associated with a given airline’s operations (from the linked Eurocontrol document):

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